Of course they lost the season’s last home game because they were, probably to a man, fighting the effects of the previous night’s alcohol intake. Dozens of cases of beer consumed. Dozens of bottles of champagne. If you’ve ever tried to take a jog with a vile hangover, you know how debilitated you are. Now try to focus on a low-and-outside slider.

Hey, I don’t blame the guys for getting wasted after clinching the team’s first ever playoff spot on Saturday. And I don’t blame them for not admitting that the after-effects of boozing contributed to the loss — just so long as they realize that much more work is to be done to hold off Boston for the AL East title, and they get back in gear tonight.

Celebrating too early and allowing the Sox to pass them in the division race would really set a bad note for the playoffs, and that includes forfeiting home field advantage.

Shit, I almost forgot. Congratulations Rays. You got it done — the first part, at least.

• I can’t remember the last time the Bucs were in a barnburner like yesterday’s win against the Bears, and it was fun to watch. I give Brian Griese big ups for staying resilient and rallying his team.

But, man, did he make some bonehead plays, none worse than the intentional grounding penalty when the Bucs were close to scoring in overtime. Griese was not under immediate pressure, and all he had to do was run a few steps to the left before he threw the ball away. He would then have been out of the pocket, thus no penalty.

As long as Griese wins, he stays the starter, no argument there. But I still think Jeff Garcia is a better answer at QB for the Bucs — and I expect to see last year’s team MVP under center some time this season.

• Ronde Barber is the prototype cornerback for the Bucs zone defense, but, after getting toasted repeatedly in the third quarter yesterday, it showed he’s not fast enough and too small to consistently guard wide receivers man-to-man.

With the Bucs playing more and more man coverage, expect subsequent opponents to look for receiver match-ups against Barber.

Ronde’s struggles really underscored the notion that guarding a speedy wide receiver one-on-one is among the most challenging tasks in sports.

• It’s time to pull the plug on second round pick Dexter Jackson as kick returner, at least for now. Michael Clayton replaced him in key kickoff situations, and his barrel-straight-ahead approach worked a lot better than Jackson’s Fred Astaire-on-ice-skates bit (setting aside, for the moment, that Clayton fumbled and got away with it).

The Bucs have an able kick returner on the practice squad: Micheal Spurlock. It’s time to activate him.

Here’s a bleachers-eye view of the Rays celebration.

He hit a sharp shot to right, then hung around the batter’s box admiring the flight of the ball, thinking it was a homerun. Then he ambled down the first base line when he realized it would stay in the park. An easy double. He jogged around first and coasted toward second base. The Angels first baseman followed behind him, took the throw from the outfield and tagged Upton just before he touched second.

Upton looked shocked. He’d been tricked. Worse, it was not a good time to appear lazy on the baseball diamond. He hung his head. All this scrutiny, he had to be thinking, I just don’t need this.

Thing is, I don’t see Upton as lazy. At least not in this case. 99 times out of a hundred, that hit turns into an easy double. The first baseman doesn’t shadow you down the line and tag you.

It was a baserunning mistake, taking a game situation too much for granted. Upton can fix this easily by never wavering from a few simple rules. Never stand in the batters box watching the flight of the ball and never trot out of the batter’s box. Do this without exception: As soon as you hit the ball, haul ass as fast as you can. If it goes out of the park, then break into your homerun trot.

Upton ran down a ball and made a great catch in centerfield a couple of innings later. He was hustling — and not just because he’d screwed up on the basepaths earlier.

Further compounding Upton’s perception problems is that he’s a cerebral player, stone-faced, taciturn, not fiery. He runs with a natural lope, a long-strider. That can make him look as if he’s not working hard. Yet Upton leads the team in stolen bases (with 36), which has long been Carl Crawford’s domain.

Upton may hear some more boos tonight at the Trop (they’re expecting to play the game despite the storm), and he absolutely must shut them out, or at least recognize them for what they are: temporary. One thing the ham ‘n’ eggers in the stands won’t stand for is lack of effort, not when these players are raking in all that dough.

B.J. should not dwell on the embarrassment, or feel too beleaguered. Maddon, correctly, did not punish Upton or criticize him too strongly; he characterized his centerfielder’s lapse last night as a mental mistake.

Rays teammates need to be supportive of Upton. At this point in the pennant race (it’s nice to write the words “pennant race” in conjunction with the Rays), the team can’t afford for B.J to go into full brood mode. I don’t know the man, but I get the sense that he could be susceptible to that kind of behavior.

Upton should see the last couple weeks as a learning opportunity. You don’t have to be a baseball expert — I’m certainly not — to know those simple rules of baserunning: hit the ball, always haul ass.

Note: The Rays have the second best record in the Major League Baseball (tied with the Chicago Cubs at 76-48, a half-game behind the Angels, 76-47) and do not have a single player hitting over .300. Dionner Navarro leads at .294.

At 6-feet-4, 198 pounds — gargantuan for a sprinter — Bolt runs with a kind of joyful lope. In the 100-meter final, he came out of he blocks a bit behind, and at the halfway point started to put everyone in his dust. The last part of his run was pure euphoria.

If you haven’t seen the highlight, you should. I couldn’t get it on YouTube — just still shots set to music, mostly — but it is available through NBC (although you must have the right browser). I got blocked from posting it here, but this is the link.

I still hold to that position – if a little girl wants to watch Equestrian on Oxygen and I don’t, so much the better – but I must admit that all this choice has altered my viewing habits, and not always for the better. 

I have a full HD cable package, which means that on top of all the regular Olympic channels, I get a Korean and Chinese (Mandarin) channel. I was like a third-grader with a new video game the first weekend, but lately I’ve been noticing a problem: I’ve developed a short attention span. I tune in a little boxing, a little cycling, a little beach volleyball, a little softball, a little badminton, a little of everything, and don’t stay very long at any of them. It just occurred to me that I haven’t watched an entire contest in any of those above-mentioned sports.

I must be missing out on some good competition, some nailbiters. I’ve taken in a lot of swimming  — about a world record every few minutes last night – probably, precisely, because the races take just minutes (and because Phelps is an animal). The only thing I’ve watched buzzer to buzzer is the U.S.A. Basketball trouncing of China on Sunday. I even stayed for the post-rout garbage time, probably just to see if could watch one event all the way through. 

Part of this scattershot pattern is due to games being shown. The last couple of nights have been heavy on gymnastics, and no matter how hard I try I can’t get into watching prepubescent girls twist and tumble, nor well-muscled little dudes for that matter.

(I’ve probably missed a few good wipeouts, which I love – although not as much as figureskating wipeouts – and that’s because I can’t keep my finger off the remote.) Hopefully, my attention span will lengthen when the track and field starts and basketball gets into the medal rounds. Until then, my TV’s probably going to resemble a popcorn popper. 

By the way, the coolest unusual (to Americans) sport I’ve seen during these Olympics: team handball. It has nothing to do with hitting a rubber orb against a wall. Look for it. Here’s a video primer.

Hayes, aka Black Moses, contributed to the soundtrack of my high school years.

His biggest hit, “Theme From Shaft,” starts with a long instrumental section built around swirling strings and wah-wah-drenched rhythm guitar. Then the songs glides into Hayes’s buttery baritone.

The lyrics include the iconic line, “They say this cat Shaft is a bad muthah” [then the girl vocalists drown him out] “Shut your mouth!”

Here’s a fun clip of Hayes on stage performing “Shaft” with his mammoth ensemble. A ’fro-wearing, dashiki’ed Jesse Jackson introduces him.

Cheerleader. 

Jock prez Bush has been all over the Beijing Olympics, sitting in the stands, kibitzing with the athletes, riding the mountain bike course. After beach volleyballer Misty May-Treanor invited him to slap her on the ass – a customary gesture of encouragement – Bush obliged with a little tap on her lower back. C’mon Dubya, get into the spirit, man. She offered. And she has a pretty nice ass.

I don’t blame Bush for living it up at the Olympics. He’s the ultimate lame duck who’s just cashing in on his VIP status, milking all the swag he can get. 

It’s a bit of a sad commentary, of course: Bush waving to the athletes from the stands, winking, smiling his fratboy smile. He’s a good fan, a true believer, a total U.S. Olympic team booster. He seems so much in his element.  

Which just underscores how bad he is at everything else. At the Olympics, he is excelling as a figurehead. If only we could’ve kept him in that role for the last eight years.

Yes, there was the assortment of spectacular dunks and amazing no-look passes, but the U.S. players didn’t come off as showboaters. It’s just how they play – frenetic and fast-paced. The Redeem Team, as they’ve been dubbed (because of recent failures by U.S.A. Basketball in international competition), shows good character and consummate teamwork.

They’re entertaining because they play fastbreak basketball, keying their offense off smothering defense (steals leading to highlight dunks). (Anyone under the preposterous notion that NBA players don’t play D should watch these guys.) It’s really refreshing to witness hoops being played by magicians in a wide-open style. 

The Chinese, geeked up in front of their home crowd, started out hot; the score was actually tied 29-29. But the Chinese faded under the withering, swarming American style. One of key assets of the U.S. team, of course, is the quality of its individual players. LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard. 

But an even bigger asset looks to be their depth. Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosch, Deron Williams off the bench? Hell, Carlos Boozer and Tayshaun Prince are mop-up players. And this whole crew is interchangeable. Unlike the recent all-star squads that made up U.S.A Basketball, these guys play together, have practiced together for three years, and have bonded together (and they’ve jettisoned hoops dickheads like Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury). 

That means the U.S. can come at teams in waves, the idea being that they’ll ultimately wear their opponents down. That’s what happened to the Chinese. 

I understand people being cynical about guys making 8, 12, 20 million a year who play in the Olympics, but remember that the U.S. guys are playing against other pros. And thus far they have represented their country admirably, and shown ample character as both individuals and as a team (they showed up en masse to support the U.S.A. women’s basketball team and have been running around Beijing seeing different events).

The United States squad will likely be challenged along the way, but I expect this team to earn the redemption it seeks.  I suggest giving them a look. You don’t have to be a basketball fan to be entertained.

Garcia’s always been an underdog type — too small, not a great arm — so in one sense, he’s been through this sort of thing before; in another sense, he’s probably fuckin’ tired of it.

The question being posed is: Will his hard feelings about the Bucs courting [you know who] affect his play? I say, not a chance.

He and Jon Gruden are probably no longer chummy — maybe they never were — but I have no doubt the two will continue to communicate just fine on a football level.

Most of all, though, Garcia is not a Manny Ramirez or Shaq, players have a rep for tanking when they’re not happy about something. No way Garcia will let lingering resentment affect his performance. He’s 38 (so is [you know who]) and there’s not much career left. Garcia is one uber-competitive cat, and once he gets on the field, he knows no other way than to give it his everything.

Now, how the [you know who] imbroglio will affect his future with the team is another question.

I have no idea the level of Garcia’s resentment — pundits suggest it’s high — but he’d do himself a favor if he stepped back and looked at the matter rationally. This was [you know who]! This was Jon Gruden! Of course the coach was going to be interested.

The Bucs didn’t sniff around some stiff; they explored the possiblity of bringing in one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the game who had a great season last year. [You know who] is better than Jeff Garcia, and Jeff Garcia probably knows that. Would [you know who] be better this year with the Bucs than Jeff Garcia? Good question. One that will never be answered.

I grew up in suburban New York, and having subsequently met folks in my age group from all around the States, it’s clear that we did not all share the same vernacular. 

When I first came to Florida after finishing college in upstate New York, I didn’t fit in too well with the social cliques in St. Pete. Some of it was a language barrier. I couldn’t stand to hear someone say “y’all,” let alone say it myself. “Y’all” was pretty common down here at the time; I don’t hear it as much anymore.

One word I brought down from up north was “pisser,” or, more accurately, “pissa.”

“Did you go to Alvo’s party? It was a pissa, man.” “That Alvo, he’s a pissa.” For us, pissa = good, fun.

But it wasn’t a good word to use in Tampa Bay in the mid 1970s. “A what?” I’d hear when “pissa” slipped from my mouth (by the way, I had very little New York accent, so it really was the word and not the way I said it, which was more like “pissuh.”)

I found out that saying pissuh was an immediate deal-breaker with chicks, and just about anybody else, so I quickly vanquished it from my lexicon. In the decades since, I’ve never missed using the word pissuh.

I do, however, miss “ball” as a verb for the sex act. “I was ballin’ this chick.” D’ju ball ’er?” These were very common sayings among our group of male friends.

To ball was strictly a male act. A chick could not ball a guy; she let him ball her (although it was doubtful that most of the girls we knew would put it that way; they seemed to prefer euphemisms like “sleep with” or [yech] “make love.” ) I’ll never forget when, a few years after college, I was scolded by a young lady for using “make love.” Sheesh, she said, we’re not making love.” Thanks for curing me of that, whoever you were.

Lastly, “dude” is not just a post-Spicoli construct or a 19th Century term that meant a city-slicker in the country. We used it in high school, but not in the multi-faceted way it evolved post-Valleyspeak. “Duuuuuude.” “Dude?!” (like in the beer commercial) and many other iterations.

Our “dude” was said almost strictly as another noun for guy, without a lot of inflection. “He’s a good dude.” “That dude drives like a maniac.” But never “Dude, you comin’ over tonight?” or “Dude can really run his mouth.”

I try not to use “dude” anymore. It doesn’t seem to befit my age, plus don’t you think the term is tired?